


Puppy Love

by orgaziam



Series: Life in an Alternate Universe (AU Prompts) [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Fluff, Loki - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 07:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13922325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orgaziam/pseuds/orgaziam
Summary: Maybe taking Loki out for a walk wasn’t such a bad idea after all.For the au prompt, “You’re on the street corner handing out brochures for something I really honestly couldn’t care less about but holy shit I want to run my hands through your hair so I guess I could fake some interest.”





	Puppy Love

It’s an unusually warm and sunny day out in the middle of autumn when Liam decides to take Loki out for a walk. 

Sunday mornings are his favorite times to take Loki out to the park because it’s the one day out of the week where the park is the least crowded and Liam doesn’t have to worry about nudging Loki away from too many strangers. It’s not that he doesn’t like people, but sometimes Liam just wants to enjoy a nice walk without someone stopping him every two minutes to pet his dog. And Loki craves the attention, always reluctant to leave the nice strangers offering him cuddles and affection when Liam starts to pull lightly at his leash and politely wave farewell to the strangers.

 

So when Liam notices the park is busier than it usually is on a Sunday morning, he internally groans and considers heading back to his apartment but decides against it. It’s been a while since he’s taken Loki out, since he’s too busy with work and school during the weekdays, and if it gets too crowded he can just go back home. He decides to continue on his walk and throws on a pair of earphones to hopefully deter anyone from speaking to him. He lets Loki guide him throughout his stroll, who stops to curiously bark and sniff at the various flowers and trees planted near the sidewalk while his skin soaks up the midautumn sun and his hair flows in the soft breeze. He gets some friendly smiles and coos toward his dog from passerbys and reciprocates the gester while Loki wags his tail around in interest.

 

It’s only a few minutes into his walk when suddenly there’s a flyer infront of his face and a soft voice interrupting the loud music coming from the speakers of his heaphones. Liam jolts in surprise before taking out one of his earphones and looking for the owner of the voice.

 

There’s a boy standing at the edge of the sidewalk in front of him, raven hair tied up in a knot at the top of his head to protect it against the autumn wind, warm brown eyes squinted slightly due to the sun’s harsh rays, and soft lips tilted upward into an inviting smile. He’s around Liam’s age, no older than his early twenties, and is wearing a soft red t-shirt and black jeans. Liam is stunned for a second, suddenly speechless and doesn’t even remember why he stopped walking until he’s aware of Loki harshly tugging on his leash and snapping him back to reality. 

 

The other boy laughs, but instead of making Liam feel embarrassed for staring like any other person, the laugh makes Liam feel warm and a slight blush takes over his cheeks. The boy is beautiful when he smiles, his tongue poking between his teeth and eyes shining, almost disappearing behind his cheeks. His eyelashes curve upwards, fluttering as he shields his eyes from the sun. His laugh is contagious, bringing a small smile to Liam’s own lips until he notices the man’s mouth is moving again and Liam has once again missed what he’s said.

 

He hurriedly takes out his other earbud and smiles shyly at the man again, “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you. What was that?”

 

The boy doesn’t seem phased, just smiles at Liam and speaks again, and suddenly Liam remembers that the other boy has been holding out a flyer right under his nose throughout the entire encounter. He takes the flyer from the boy, not properly looking at it before his eyes are immediately fixed back onto the gorgeous boy in front of him, unwilling to look away.

 

He wonders how long the boy’s hair is, whether it reaches his neck or his collarbone. He wants to feel it in his hands, see if it’s as soft as it looks, if it matches the rest of the boy’s delicate features. He wants to reach out and touch the boy’s skin, wants to know what other tattoos he has besides the ones poking out from behind his collar, wonders what it would feel like to-

 

His thoughts are stopped by the boy asking, “And, well, would you be interested?”

 

And Liam is definitely interested in anything the boy has to offer, and even says as much to the boy. This gets another laugh out of the boy, and Liam smiles happily. God, he could watch this boy laugh all day and never get tired.

 

“Perfect! If you could just sign this and write down your phone number, we will happily contact you and let you know when you can start,” and suddenly Liam is presented with a pen and a clipboard with a small list of names already scribbled onto it. And Liam, momentarily confused, flushes as he looks down at the flyer in his hands in embarrassment and quickly reads the words “Pet adoption center” and “volunteer.” And God, what did he just sign up for?

 

He hesitates before handing Loki’s leash over to the other boy to hold so he can use both of his hands to hold the clipboard and neatly print his name and phone number onto the paper, wondering (and hoping) if maybe the boy will use his number to contact him for other things, as well.

 

He hands the clipboard back to the boy, who is now fully seated in the grass with an excited Loki half on top of him, licking the boy’s face while the boy laughs adorably, petting Loki in return. Liam frantically calls, “Loki! Off!” and the dog whines in response, reluctantly pulling off of the raven-haired boy and almost frowning up at Liam, his tail sagging between his legs.

 

“Awh, no it’s okay, I love dogs. Loki, right?” The boy says, reaching for the dog once again and scratching just behind Loki’s ears. Loki barks in response, but it lacks any maliciousness as he falls back into the attention the boy is giving him. Liam can’t blame Loki, is slightly jealous, even, that his dog is getting more attention from this beautiful stranger than him.

 

The boy looks up at Liam again, still sitting on the edge of the sidewalk in the grass, and shielding his eyes from the sun as he smiles, “Loki huh? You into superheros then?”

 

Liam blushes and moves to sit beside the boy, clearly no longer in any rush to get back to his walk. “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

 

The boy hums, murmuring a “As long as you don’t think DC is better than Marvel,” which Liam scoffs at, before the boy is moving to take the clipboard back from Liam as Loki perches himself on the boy’s lap, clearly too big to fit between the boy’s thinner legs, but making himself comfortable nonetheless. He looks at the clipboard and back at Liam, smiling.

 

“Liam huh? The name suits you,” he says, and Liam notices the boy is blushing, tugging his bottom lip between his teeth while petting Loki sweetly.

 

“What’s yours?” Liam finds himself asking, barely sure how the words have managed to leave his mouth without a stutter or squeak. He mentally pats himself on the back. Good job, Liam, you’ve got this.

 

“Zayn,” the boy says, his thick accent making it sound more like “zen.” Liam tries to repeat the name, loves the way the letters roll off of his tongue, but it doesn’t sound nearly as nice as Zayn did when he said Liam’s name, stretching the letters out to sound more like “Leeyum.”

 

He doesn’t know how long the two of them sit there in the grass, blinking away at the sun and petting a pliant Loki as they chat quietly about superheros and pets and hobbies and families. Liam doesn’t think he’s ever seen his dog this calm while at the park, either. Usually Loki will pull Liam through his leash in the direction of the playground or soccer field, barking and yelping at nearly everything that grabs his attention. But instead the dog is half asleep, just enjoying the sun as he lays his head on Zayn’s thigh, occasionally getting up to stretch his hind legs and walk in circles around the pair, but always coming back to perch himself on Zayn’s lap.

 

He doesn’t want to leave but he knows Zayn has to pass out more flyers and he has plans with Louis in half an hour. As tempted as he is to just call them off, he knows Louis will never let him hear the end of it if he bails. So he reluctantly tells Zayn as much, before eventually saying his goodbyes and pulling a dejected-looking Loki away from Zayn and back toward the direction of his apartment.

 

He’s about to put his headphones back in before he hears a soft “wait!” and there’s an arm wrapping around his bicep, successfully catching his attention. He turns around and finds himself face to face with a flushed and out of breath Zayn, his stack of flyers gone and in its place a single, slightly crumpled flyer that he hands over to Liam.

 

“You left your flyer,” he says, and hands it over to Liam, hesitating for a moment before leaning up on the tips of his toes to kiss Liam’s cheek and running off before Liam can so much as react, shouting a “Bye Leeyum!”

 

Liam clutches the flyer and blushes as his hand reaches up to carress the cheek Zayn just kissed. He’s pretty sure he looks like an idiot standing there for a few moments, before finally collecting himself and Loki and heading back towards his apartment, a smile permanently latched onto his lips.

 

It’s not until he gets home and shucks out of the gym shorts he wore to the park and into a pair of jeans that the carefully folded flyer falls out of his pocket and onto the floor with a soft thud that he decides to finally look at it.

 

It’s a flyer for volunteer work at the local adoption center. The same one he got Loki at just a few months ago, he notes. He wonders for a moment if that’s why Loki was so instantly attached to Zayn, if maybe Loki knew Zayn when he was still at the adoption center, long before Liam stopped by one day on a whim with his friend Niall to help him buy his girlfriend a cat, when he fell in love with the tiny Alaskan Klee Kai he saw playing with one of the other employees.

 

What really catches his eye, however, is the scribble written at the bottom, a series of numbers followed by a “Call me, -Zayn x” and suddenly he feels elated, reaching for his phone and entering the number into his contacts immediately.

 

He debates for a while on whether or not he should immediately text him, before deciding that he’ll text Zayn later that night, after he hangs out with Louis and lets some of the giddiness he’s feeling die off. 

 

He only lasts about 40 seconds, before he’s texting the number and barely containing his smile.

 

Maybe it wasn’t a terrible idea to take Loki out on a walk after all.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, all kudos and comments are appreciated! If you have any prompts, please share them below and I will be happy to attempt them :)


End file.
